68.6 million inhabitants in France on January 1: number of deaths, drop in births… what to remember from the INSEE report

68.6 million inhabitants in France on January 1st. Midi Libre – JEAN MICHEL MART

France had 68.6 million inhabitants on January 1st, 2025, an increase of 0.25% over one year, limited by a new drop in births and an increase in deaths last year, INSEE indicated on Tuesday.

In 2024, 663,000 babies were born in the country, 2.2% fewer than the previous year, which is the lowest number of births in a year since 1946. The birth rate was already at its lowest since this period the previous year.

This new decline is explained “mainly by the decline in fertility”, specifies the National Institute of Statistics in its annual demographic report.

The fertility rate before age 40 fell in 2024, including for women aged 30 to 39, “who were not or only slightly affected by the decline in fertility before the crisis health”.

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646 000 deaths

In this context, the total fertility rate (TFR) also continues to decline: it stood at 1.59 children per woman in mainland France in 2024, its lowest level for over a century. It also reached 1.59 in 1919, at the end of the First World War.

This decline is part of a medium-term trend: this index has been decreasing since 2010, when it stood at 2.02 children per woman in metropolitan France.

In 2024, there will also be 646,000 deaths, a number up 1.1%, due to “the arrival of the large baby boom generations at ages of high mortality”.

A consequence of these developments: the natural balance of the French population, i.e. the difference between the number of births and deaths, is barely positive (+17,000 people). This is also the “lowest level” observed since the end of the Second World War.

The growth of the French population has mainly been driven by net migration (estimated at +152,000 people), i.e. the difference between the number of people entering and leaving the country.

As for life expectancy at birth, it has stabilized at a “historically high level” : 85.6 years for women and 80.0 years for men.

Since the mid-1990s, life expectancy at birth has been growing less quickly for women than men, thus reducing the gap between the two sexes: it stood at 5.6 years in 2024, compared to 7.1 years in 2004.